The obvious question people would ask upon seeing the VG23 in the hayloft was, ‘how are you going to get it down from there’? Over the years we’d joke about elaborately far-fetched schemes for accomplishing this task. Eventually though we’d conclude the answer was equally obvious – ‘it’ll require a crane’.

So last weekend a team from Grues Gendron arrived to lift the boat from the hayloft. It seems that nearly every major task in this boat building project has had a mis-start or two and, following that tradition, the first crane to arrive would not fit into the barn.

Soon enough, a second crane arrived and we got down to the business of strapping the VG23 in for the ride. In order to clear the back of the truck and fit through the barn door we needed to angle the boat so that the stern was lower than the bow.

Slowly the VG23 was lifted from her cradle and lowered onto a waiting trailer.

With hindsight, I guess I should have been on guard considering the summer seemed to have progressed fairly uneventfully. I steadily made progress in the cabin, painting and running a minimum of electrics.

I spent the remainder of my time in the hayloft installing various deck and rigging hardware.

I will never feel comfortable drilling through the deck. Paranoid about leaks and rot I’ve been drilling the initial hole slightly larger than the corresponding bolt, filling it with epoxy and then re-drilling at the proper size. Finally, everything gets bedded with a generous application of sealant. Only time will tell how successful this approach will be.

Usually I close up shop in the hayloft on the Thanksgiving weekend. This year I thought I’d see if I could squeeze in another weekend or two and so planned to spend the day installing the chainplates. As I was stepping onto the ladder to climb out of the hayloft it broke and I instead spent the day in an emergency room nursing what turned out to be a pair of broken ankles.

FDTracer
I put together this update sometime ago but am only “officially” releasing it now. The recent release of FlashDevelop 3 RC1 requires that you also update your installed version of the FDTracer plugin:

FlashLogViewer
Apparently I have a habit of writing plugins who’s features end up getting baked into the product they extend. I’m happy to announce that FDTracer is facing it’s EOL. The current pre-release of FlashDevelop 3 RC2 includes a FlashLogViewer plugin which provides FDTracer like functionality and more. I installed FD3 RC2 this afternoon and FlashLogViewer feels like an old friend:

To prepare for painting the VG23 I put in the requisite “who knows how many” hours of sanding primer and then erected a bit of a spray tent by hanging an enormous tarp from the hayloft rafters. The hayloft has been the perfect space to build but I was worried about dust and the pigeons that have been hanging about all summer.

On painting day we setup the air compressor on the lawn next to the barn and ran a hose up through the hayloft window. To keep dust down we used a watering can to wet down the floor and then we started mixing paint.

I’m still not sure if my giddiness was due to finally seeing the VG23 with a coat of paint or simply a result of getting a bit too close to the overspray.